Soldiers are expected to stand through karakia (prayers), take part in pōwhiri (ritual welcomes), join in waiata (ceremonial chants), perform haka (ritual war dances), and in some cases engage in hongi (a physical ritual exchange). These are not passive observations. They are embodied acts—spoken, physical, and repeated—woven into daily military life. And when those acts are expected, normalised, or quietly enforced through hierarchy and peer pressure, the line into coercion has already been crossed.
That’s where the legal problem becomes unavoidable. Section 13 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, and belief. Section 15 protects the right to manifest religion or belief—but just as importantly, it protects the right not to manifest it. Section 19 guarantees freedom from discrimination, including on the basis of belief. In a military context, where refusing participation can affect cohesion, reputation, or career progression, “voluntary” becomes a fiction. The state cannot sidestep these protections by relabelling spiritual practice as “culture.” If it walks like a ritual and functions like a ritual, then compelling it—directly or indirectly—runs straight into the wall of those rights. Add to that Section 5, which requires any limitation on rights to be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, and you’re left with a serious question: what operational necessity justifies embedding ritual compliance into a modern army?
And this is where people need to stop pretending this is neutral policy. It aligns with the broader push toward co-governance structures, where ancestry and worldview are given institutional weight inside state systems. Call it what you like—many will recognise it as a form of legalised racial preference, dressed up in softer language. But a military cannot function as a laboratory for ideological experiments. The solution is not complicated, and it doesn’t require endless “conversations.” It requires a line in the sand: make all ritual participation strictly opt-in, with zero career consequence; strip compulsory elements out of training and official duties; reaffirm the armed forces as a secular institution bound first and foremost by equal rights under law; and, if necessary, legislate that boundary explicitly so it cannot be bypassed by policy. That’s how you restore clarity. That’s how you protect the individual. And that’s how you stop this from embedding any deeper than it already has.
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Video credit: The Platform NZ
■ Michael Laws
EXPOSED! NZ Army Using Bi-Culturalism To Impose Māori Mono-Culturalism
That’s where the legal problem becomes unavoidable. Section 13 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, and belief. Section 15 protects the right to manifest religion or belief—but just as importantly, it protects the right not to manifest it. Section 19 guarantees freedom from discrimination, including on the basis of belief. In a military context, where refusing participation can affect cohesion, reputation, or career progression, “voluntary” becomes a fiction. The state cannot sidestep these protections by relabelling spiritual practice as “culture.” If it walks like a ritual and functions like a ritual, then compelling it—directly or indirectly—runs straight into the wall of those rights. Add to that Section 5, which requires any limitation on rights to be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, and you’re left with a serious question: what operational necessity justifies embedding ritual compliance into a modern army?
And this is where people need to stop pretending this is neutral policy. It aligns with the broader push toward co-governance structures, where ancestry and worldview are given institutional weight inside state systems. Call it what you like—many will recognise it as a form of legalised racial preference, dressed up in softer language. But a military cannot function as a laboratory for ideological experiments. The solution is not complicated, and it doesn’t require endless “conversations.” It requires a line in the sand: make all ritual participation strictly opt-in, with zero career consequence; strip compulsory elements out of training and official duties; reaffirm the armed forces as a secular institution bound first and foremost by equal rights under law; and, if necessary, legislate that boundary explicitly so it cannot be bypassed by policy. That’s how you restore clarity. That’s how you protect the individual. And that’s how you stop this from embedding any deeper than it already has.
---
Video credit: The Platform NZ
■ Michael Laws
EXPOSED! NZ Army Using Bi-Culturalism To Impose Māori Mono-Culturalism
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John Robertson is a patriotic New Zealander who frequently posts on Facebook.
12 comments:
What all this could mean is an army, full of part-maori ideas and aspirations, ideologically anti non-maori and ready to take over the colonialists at the behest of a government or dictatorial prime minister as seen throughout the world, especially in Africa where racial and tribal demarcations have been a source of fighting and massacres. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Now a human right issue - clearly coercion.
This a test that the National led coalition is manifestly failing.
The maori conquest of NZ by the promotion of an obsolete stone age language will go down as one of the great achievement anomalies in world history. That maori were able and encouraged to openly prepare the army from within for support of the insurrection will add to the marvel.
What did our forebears fight and die for, they wasted that effort.
We are putting ourselves in the position that Britain is now experiencing. Should we ever need our military, they will be too busy with race and gender issues to be effective.
This whole exercise in woke mumbo jumbo should be exorcised from the Army Services - now. The Minister responsible should simply step in and put a stop to it.
I have no idea what the Australian Armed Forces , any other allied Force, would make of this nonsense?
All this is before anyone needs to invoke the clear breaches of the NZBoR Act that you have so simply amplified.
And then someboby with authority needs to sever the Army's relationship with the hopelessly inept and unpatriotic Mrs & Mr King.
Steve Ellis
And what has Judith Collins done about it ???
"Paused" is the word she has used.
Not condemned, stopped, banned, but "paused", as though this is only a temporary stop to these outrageous, completely unacceptable demands.
I am coming to the firm belief that Collins and others are complying with Luxon's instructions to obey his personal beliefs regarding the rights of Maori.
Also, over the last decade or so, the performance of the 28th Maori Battalion has been over inflated above the rest of every other NZ participant in WW2.
I’m pro army therefore take issue with this anti-army article. New Zealand needs an army now more than ever
Anon 953, I would say that John Robinson is obviously pro-army and is objecting to it being subverted by means of an enforced ideological agenda.
The article is not anti army. It’s anti indoctrination and compulsory religious/cultural practices. The NZ army and all those who serve in it are highly valued.
Further to my concerns expressed above, it is pertinent to remember how military-style semi-automatic weapons have largely disappeared from private ownership as promulgated by law and the toothy, female, once Prime Minister of this country. This means that only the military and police have access to such weapons, leaving the public largely unable to protect themselves in the face of an armed insurrection by the army and/or police. People may scoff at US gun laws, but they (the US public) do know from where threats to public life could come and will be able to protect themselves. If anyone thinks I am an unbalanced conspiracy theorist, go back and listen to Michael Laws' report and John Robertson's post. Think also on what has happened in South America, Africa and parts of Asia where the military, at the behest of politicians killed thousands of public protesters or anyone who posed a threat to government order and ideology, such as intellectuals, teachers and doctors. The ordinary people of a country are not safe when only the army and police have weapons.
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